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heodore Roosevelt 
Charles J. Finger 


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HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
GIRARD, KANSAS 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERIC.’ 


Copyright, 1924, : 
Ualdeman-Julius Company. | Ls 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


THEQDORE ROOSEVELT. 


) 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


THE APPRENTICE 


There is a kind of misty enchantment about 
the figure of Theodore Roosevelt, due, in part, 
to the incense burned at his feet by worship- 
pers, and in part to a light smoke-screen that 
he made to hide his own operations when 
enemies threatened to hinder or circumvent 
him. The man himself is hard to see in clear- 
cut outline and in proper proportions and he, 
looms now gigantic, now diminutive, as you 
view him from this or that man’s standpoint. 
For this one would idealize him to the point 
of sanctification, that one would belittle him 
until he became the creature of the cartoonist, 
a kind of platitudinous Boanerges. Whereas 
he is neither to be worshipped nor hated, but 
rather to be considered as a man who learned 
the act of controlling men and pushing his own 
destinies, who lived in a time pregnant with 
grave problems, a kind of happy warrior, not 
always too scrupulous, and certainly giving no 
attentive ear to the aesthetic appeal. So to 
work. 

Theodore Roosevelt was born in the year 
1858, on October 27th, at 28 Hast Twentieth 
Street, New York, and it was full forty years 
before he stepped into the vivid lhmelight, 
sharing it with no supers, and became the 
target for journalists, perhaps with his own 
connivance and consent. Or to be exact, he 


6 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT © 


largely occupied the headlines, and the incense 
burners busied themselvés when he resigned | 
as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to take _ 
office as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Roush | 
Riders, although before that he was by no. 
means a retiring kind of man. Still, from 1898 — 


im 


{ 
’ 


: 


until his death on January 6th, 1919, he was a 
national figure and when he died, when the — 
evening papers gave the news to the world, — 
those who had been his friends and those who — 
had been his foes could hardly control their — 
emotion. For there had been a sense of cont 
tact with him somehow, a sort of seine 


and the sensation that possessed us when we 
knew that he had died, was a little like the 
feeling that possesses us when a bright light — 
is suddenly dimmed in a grubby, prosaic world. 


For we had not known, had not realized that 


he was so near death. The news DUE Ove 


kept that from us for some inscrutable reason. 


So in Cleveland, where I was at the time, when . 


the newsboys opened the bundles of papers 


that had been thrown down by a speeding care 
rier, and when they displayed the great head- 


line, ROOSEVELT DEAD, men jumped from | 
moving cars to get information, talked to one_ 
another excitedly as if some great Ee 
had fallen on the world, gathered in knots and © 
compared notes, and he. who could say that 
he had seen the national hero was for thes) 
moment. the center of attraction. 


He had stood forth prominently, I said, oe 


fore the retirement from the Navy, that is, be- 
fore the Rough Rider affair. He had held 
office and was an efficient public man, serving 


in many different capacities, but the national : 


j 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT q 


attention had not been focussed upon him. 
For having once conquered a kind of nervous- 
ness from which he suffered, he was by no 
means retiring. ‘“I put myself in the way of 
things happening; and they happened,” he said 
of himself. 


(That nervousness was the result of early 
weakness, for he suffered from asthma when 
a child, and was short-sighted, and disinclined 
.for rough sports, but presently he overcame 
all that and in his life’s meridian stood sturdy 
and stocky, though at the end he failed rapidly 
and as if, somehow, he had succeeded in gath- 
ering up all his forces into the compass of a 
few active years.: So he was just a normal 
kind of lad with a’*bent to natural history, fond 
of reading, fond of collecting things. Of that 
last much has been made by the hero worship- 
pers and good paper has been spoiled telling 
about the Roosevelt Museum in the nursery. 
But few and unhappy are the boys that have 
not had some kind of collecting mania, either 
bird’s eggs, or coins, or postage stamps, or 
arrow heads, so that’s no reason to dwell on 
that. Given opportunity and means, and every 
boy will be obsessed with the mania of owning 
things, and the Roosevelt people had the 
means. Then came travel in Europe, rather 
luxuriously, for Roosevelt never knew sordid 
want or hunger—roughing it in camps, yes, but 
that is another matter altogether. So at last 
we imagine the youth with side whiskers and 
something of a drawl, with hands that never 
knew hard toil, a Harvard student, teaching 
Sunday school, full of the idea that his country 
stood on the heights. and that the mission of 


8 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
“America was to carry light to the world, and 


at last graduating in the year 1880. Then, on 
October of the same year he married Alice | : 


Hathaway Lee, who became the mother of 


Mrs. Longworth, and, two years later, his first \ 
book was published, “The Naval War of 1812.” — 


Then he engaged in politics. And naturally, 
because the air throbbed with political excite- 


ment. The memory of boss Tweed was in the 
minds of men, freshened up somewhat because — 
of the death of Tweed in jail, recently; the — 
Tweed of the Tammany ring who had been. 


convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 


twelve years imprisonment; the same Tweed — 


who being on parole had made his escape and 


had been re-arrested at Vigo in September, 


1876; the same Tweed who had disclosed the 
system of the Tammany frauds and so incrimi- 
nated many persons. Then there was O’Kelley, 
boss of New York, fast hastening to his tatt. 
Nationally considered, things were strangely 
simple then as compared to conditions today 


We rub our eyes with amaze when we read — 


that in 1879 the country had the largest grain 
crop for many years; that the public debt was 
only $2,027,202,542 in 1879 and by October of 
1880 had been reduced to $1,912,594,813. And 


¥ 


it reads strangely now, that note of- General 
Garfield’s written as a statement of his policy, | 


that “We legislate for the people of the United — 


States and not for the whole world,” (July 12, 


1880). Well within the memory of middle ag ged 2 


men, are those days, and yet there were no 


radios, no automobiles, no airplanes, no gen-. 


eral use of telephones, nor of electric light; no — 
statue of ae no obelisk at Mine uae te 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 9 


and the chief worry that occupied the minds 
of men seems to have been a fear that the 
Chinese would overrun the country and seize 
the reins of government, while the ‘‘red” terror 
-was nowhere, if we except the Knights of Labor 
and the purely philosophical anarchists in Bos- 
ton with. the erudite Benjamin R. Tucker as 
their spokesman, and Keep in mind Henry 
George and his single-taxers who loomed very 
terrible in the eyes of land monopolists. So 
Theodore Roosevelt became a member of the 
New York State Assembly in the interest of 
the Republican party and served from 1882- 
1884. It was a time when he stood inviting 
Fate, or, as he expressed it, when he put him- 
self “in the way of things happening and they 
happened.” “I worked on a very simple phi- 
losophy of government,” he tells us, ‘‘the phi- 
losophy that personal character and initiative 
are the prime requisites in political and social 
life.” 

- Certainly, something of the spirit that ani- 
mated Edmund Burke must have been his then, 
something of the spirit that made the English 
statesman, in his earlier years, write down his 
belief that for every absurdity: in religion that 
men showed him, he would disclose an hundred 
in political laws and institutions. And Theo- 
dore Roosevelt fought a fight for clean poli- 
tics and freedom from bosses, from ward heel- 
ers and public grafters; fought to prevent the 
nomination of James G. Blaine; fought against 
conditions which made it possible for ill venti- 
lated and foul rooms in tenement houses to be 
used as cigar making workshops. 


We pass swiftly over unimportant matters 


10 LIFE OF THRODORE ROOSEVELT — 


such as the ranching life in ‘South Dakota. 4 
There were two periods of that, the period | ing i 
1883, and the period between 1884-1886, but 
an altogether unwarranted glow of romance. 
has been shed by hero worshippers. For in’ 
wild lands and in sparsely peopled places there 
-is not necessarily wild adventure and outlawry 
A little, yes. On the whole, Charles Darwin’ Ss 
remark hits the case very well. You will find 
the passage in chapter xxi of “The Voyage of 
the Beagle,” wherein he writes, referring to. 
travel in out-of-the-way places, that the would- 
be wanderer “may feel assured that he will 
meet with no difficulties or dangers excepting 
in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand | 
anticipates,’—-an eminently sane opinion. Dan- 
ger exists nowhere as it does in the mean. 
streets of cities. | 


Skipping the story of his won on the Re- i 
publican convention which can interest only 
those who are interested in partisan politics, 
we come to 1886, and Roosevelt’s first big ex- 
citement when Abram S. Hewitt, son in law 
of Peter Cooper, the philanthropist, was can- 
didate tor Mayor of New York and the Repub- 
lican party nominated Roosevelt. It was a 
three-cornered fight with Henry *George run- 
ning on an independent ticket and there was 
considerable acrimony displayed, with the Re- 
publicans denouncing both Hewitt and George, 
and the Democrats declaring that a vote for 
Roosevelt was a vote for George. George, 
meanwhile, was vigorously and unjustly de- 
nounced as a “red” and Hewitt helped things 
along, indicating his belief that George and 
Roosevelt were hand in hand and that George 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT i 


was supported by “all the anarchists, nihilists, 
communists and socialists in the community.” 
Then came the day and the final official can- 
vass showed: 


“ak 35 7g oy pln, 2 Moe ingens AAR Da a aS 90,552 
RECN T ED hin Rete Ne BUR po Ce ie eWay 68,110 
PE OUSEV Clb cake wu secs nactdes adits oak 60,435 


Then came Roosevelt’s marriage with Edith 
Kermit Carow, December 2nd, 1886, his first 
wife having died two years before, on February 
14th, 1884, and following his marriage there 
were three years of literary activity, at the end 
of which he became United States Civil Service 
Commissioner (1889-1895) and then (1895- 
1897) President of the Police Commission of 
the City of New York. . 


It would be easy to fill page after page with 
interesting but non-essential matter regarding 
the things that he did and said during his in- 
- cumbency of these offices, but after all, taking 
it all in all he did no more than any one of 
ten thousand equally good men might have 
done and should have done. Why praise a man 
for doing well that which he is paid ‘to do? 
What does count, and what seems to have 
been overlooked by his biographers is that the 
man was rapidly developing into an executive, 
“that he was tasting the wine of success, that 
he had an eye for further power and taller 
pinnacles of fame. And what concerns us most 
of all is that he was learning. what it means to 
have the stranglehold, to have the power to 
hire and fire, the power to reward and punish. 
Greatest of all is the fact that he was learning 
the secret known only to those who have held 


12 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


positions of high place, the secret that the vast 
majority of men are quite willing, even eager, 
to efface themselves to contribute to the.glory © 
of those above them if it becomes their tem- 
porary self interest so to do. He was learning — 
that the man in power becomes more powerful 
because the majority of men are sycophantic 
to nauseousness in their conduct towards those — 
from whom favors are to be expected. He was > 
learning that the man in power always lives, 
and moves and has his being in an atmosphere | 
of vast deference and that there is only the 
difference that is outward between the forms — 
of flattery with which our own people render — 
obeisance to the man in power, and those with | 
which the ofientals give their salaams to lofty 
potentates. And certainly he was learning to — 
bring things to a focus, to concentrate in such 
way as to understand issues and direct men. — 
He was also learning to decide—and on that 
much hangs. For quick decision removes doubt 
in those who stand about the throne. Right or 
wrong though the decision be, there is the val- 
uable appearance of effectiveness, which counts 
for much, very much indeed. — 


So what with one thing and another, Theo- 
dore Roosevelt began to loom large in the pub- | 
lic eye and he became a target in a way. He 
’ worked with ferocious energy, for he had fos- 
tered that alertness and industry common to > 
all successful executives. He was as fond of 
hard work, had as great a capacity for taking 
pains as that madman of the North, Charles 
XII, or as John Wesley, or as Charlemagne, or 
as Napoleon. In ease he was as restless as 
Alexander or Henry IV of France. As evidence i 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSLVELT 15 


of that industry and methodical working, mark 
the titles of the books written up to the time 
we are dealing with: 


1882 The Naval War of 1812. 

1885 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. 
1887 Life of Thomas Hart Benton. 

1888 Life of Gouverneur Morris. 

1888 Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. 
1888 Essays in Practical Politics. 

1889 Winning of the West. 

1891 History of New York. 

1895 The Wilderness Hunter. 

1895 Hero Tales from American History. 
1897 American Ideals. 


fips 


14 LIFE Ol THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


THE EXECUTIVE _ 


The apprenticeship then may be said to be 


completed and somehow he became the target 


of journalists. Of course, every President be- | 


comes the target for the journalist, and the. 


reading public, ever agape for a new sensation, 


is regaled with tales of the personal idiosyn- — 
cracies of the chief officer, and his likes and 
dislikes, the manner in which he stands and — 
sits and walks and talks, an account of what 


he eats and drinks, and the narrow escape 
from death he has in his goings and comings. 
For of all people, your American is supposed, 
by the purveyors of news, to be a hero wor- 
shipper. Those who sit in the seats of the 
mighty in the newspaper world are, to be sure, 
lavish in that praise to the face which is open 
disgrace, but to judge by the matter flung in 
the face of their readers, they hold the intelli- 


gence of their patrons in low esteem. If it 


were otherwise, how account for the low tone 
of contemporary journalism? How account for 
the preposterous notions given publicity in the 
editorials? How account for the incredible 


inanities everywhere in the public press, the — 


statements made today and denied tomorrow, 


the emasculation of news, the propaganda, the ; 


- pernicious lies thrust on a confident public? 


But of all the Presidents, Theodore Roose- 


velt somehow became the mark of the journal- 
ists, so much so indeed as almost to become 


a legendary personage like King Arthur, or : 


Jack the Giant Killer, or Robin Hood. I have — 


known men living in foreign co. who had _ 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 15 


gained so distorted an idea, that they could 
hardly be dissuaded from the notion that Theo- 
_dore Roosevelt went about with a club. I have 
heard others, Americans, tell strange tales of 
the riding of a spirited horse into the White 
House—of cross country hikes with fat army 
officers who were led by circuitous routes to 
little rivers on cold days, across which Roose- 
velt walked, waist deep, the officers following, 
to find, on the further side, a warm carriage 
waiting for T. R. into which he went, laughing 
at the wet and bedraggled victims of his sport 
—and so on, stories wild, improbable. For a 
figure was built up, as it were, built up to 
resemble a giant physically, intellectually, 
morally. The most incredible inanities and 
the most preposterous notions were written 
around him or attributed to him until he 
seemed from one viewpoint a monster of du- 
plicity full of strange notions and delusions 
and eccentricities, and, from another viewpoint 
a being all compounded of virtues and shining 
heroisms. So the truth was almost lost sight 
of that he was an ordinary man with some 
extraordinary qualities, a man of great energy 
and large ambition and acquired executive 
ability, one who lived a clean life, who was 
furious in his prejudices and whose reach was 
more than his grasp. But to present a mere 
man was distasteful to the journalists, and 
more distasteful to those employing them. So, 
commencing with the Rough Rider incident, 
the newspapermen began to endow him with 
strange attributes, wierd attributes, attributes 
enough to gratify any reasonable ambition, 
greatly to the benefit of the subscription and 


» 


16 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


advertising accounts of the newspaper owners. | 


So there were mudslingers and whitewashers, 
gilders and destroyers, those who saw, or 


seemed to see in the man something akin to 
omniscience, and those who found in his every — 
act a triumph of ineptitude over ability. One 


day the Roosevelt star seemed in the ascendant 


and the day following, rapidly decadent. He 
was praised to the skies as the equal or the — 
superior of Darius or of Caesar, then in an- 


other damned and bestuck with the most eX: 


traordinary accusations. 


For instance, there is the tale of Kettle i 


or the Roosevelt share in the Cuban campaign. 
Today it is almost forgotten that it was due‘to 
that pernicious sensationalism of the modern 


journalist that the United States took part in 
Cuban affairs, but it is nevertheless true. To. 


briefly recapitulate, in February, of 1898, a pri- 
vate and personal letter written by de Lome, 
Spanish ambassador at Washington, was stolen 
from the mails and got into the hands of Wil- 


liam Randolph Hearst, who published it. The 


letter expressed mild contempt for the Presi- 


dent of the United States, but after all it was 


a private opinion. The breach of courtesy in 
the Hearst action was not seriously considered, — 


strangely enough. However, the ambassador 


was recalled and a breach was made. In the 


same month the battleship Maine was sent to 


Havana and there was blown up and.two offi- 
cers and two hundred and fifty-eight men went 


to their death. The cause of the disaster is 
still matter for argument {In similar manner 
the Dottrell met her doom in Magellan straits, 


and similarly other war vessels have met 


a 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 17 


disaster. However, the cry arose of “Remem- 
ber the Maine” and the country went wild, so 
there was war. Taking the Beard ‘History of 
the United States” as guide, we find the salient 
events of the campaign thus set down: 


May ist, 1898. Dewey at Manila Bay destroyed 
he Spanish fleet. 
July 8rd. Cervera’s fleet destroyed: by Schley. 
July 17th. Santiago shelled and invested by 
Shafter. 
_July 25th. General Miles landed in Porto Rico. 
August 13th. General Merritt and Admiral 
Yewey carried Manila by storm and the war was 
ver. 


(see page 492 “History of the United States” — 
by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard. Mac- 
. Millan Company, 1921) Nor is there mention 
of the name of Theodore Roosevelt in this con- 
nection except for that in the 17-19th lines, 
“The navy, as a result in no small measure of 
the alertness of Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant 
Secretary of the Department, was ready for 
the trial by battle.” 

But mark this. Go about, talk with men. who 
were in their prime in 1898 and hear their 
story of the Cuban war. You will find small 
mention of the names of Miles, or Dewey, or 
Schley, or Shafter. Those figures have some- 
how become dim and indistinct. But you will 
find much, very much told of Roosevelt and 
San Juan hill—so much indeed that it will 
seem that the whole war with Spain centered 
about Theodore Roosevelt, his Rough Riders 
and San Juan, the which is passed over with- 
out mention by the historian quoted. Or mark 
that piece of propaganda and hero worship put © 


18 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT ~ 


out by some film company and shown broad- 
cast over the country—the film purporting to 
be the pictorial life of Roosevelt. What do you . 
find? San Juan and the Rough Riders and 
Roosevelt featured, other incidents and figures 
almost nowhere. Now turn to the newspapers 
and the illustrated papers at the time of Roose- 
velt’s candidature for the presidency, say about 
October, 1904, to find San Juan looming large, — 
very large indeed, and Roosevelt grown into 
the battling hero of the Cuban war. Then turn 
to some school histories to find pictures of 
Roosevelt charging up San Juan hillyat the © 
head of the Rough Riders and the event made — 
much of. 


Bearing that in mind, we come to the chal- 
lenge made in 1916, a challenge contained in 
the Public, a paper edited by a man of honor 
and integrity, who became, under President 
Wilson, Assistant Secretary of Labor. I refer 
to Mr. Louis F. Post, who was hardly the kind 
of man to allow a frankly untrue charge to 
appear in a periodical under his control. You 
will find the article in full on page 978, Vol. 
XIX of the Public, doubtless on file in any 
library making a pretence of fair completeness 
in its shelf of Economics. It is entitled “The 
Real Roosevelt” and the author is R. F. Petti- 
grew, afterwards Senator Pettigrew of South © 
Dakota and author of “The Course of Hmpire,” 
(Boni and Liveright). I am going to quote the 
salient part of the matter, tearing nothing from 
its context in a way to alter or modify what 
here appears, for the passage is too long to. 
quote in full. But I quote it, not in any en- — 


| 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 19 


deavor to show the subject of this sketch in 
the light of pretender, but for another purpose 
altogether. This: If the Pettigrew accusation 
is well founded, then, judging from what fol- 
lowed, Theodore Roosevelt is lifted to a high 
place as an executive who knew how to seize 
upon popular love of the romantic and turn. 
it to advantage. For my task, self imposed, fs 
to reveal Roosevelt as an executive and not 
as a half god. 
To Pettigrew then: 


“When the battleship Maine was blown up in 
Havana harbor just previous to the war with Spain, 
Colonel Grigsby was at Fort Pierre, South Da- 
kota. Fort Pierre is on the west side of the Mis- 
-souri River ... Colonel Grigsby was a veteran of 
the Civil war, having seen four years service—a 
man of great courage and intelligence. From Fort 
Pierre he telegraphed President McKinley that the 
sinking of the Maine meant war, and that the best 
soldiers that could be secured on short notice for 
the war with Spain were the cowboys of the plains. 
He offered his services in. this connection. 


“Shortly afterwards Colonel Grigsby came _ to 
Washington and secured an amendment to the bill, 
which had already passed the House, authorizing 

the raising of volunteers for the Spanish war, which 
provided that 3,000 men of special fitness might be 

recruited independently, the officers to be ap- 
pointed by the President. 

“At this time Theodore Roosevelt was Assistant 

_ Secretary of the Navy, Leonard Wood was a con- 

tract surgeon in the Army of the United States 

: located at Washington, and detailed to attend Mrs. 

McKinley. He applied to be appointed one of the 

colonels of one of the Rough Rider regiments of 

‘ cowboys and Theodore Roosevelt applied to be ap- 
pointed Lieutenant Colonel of the same regiment. 

These two _doughty soldiers, with no experience ex- 

cept Mr. Roosevelt’s experience as a cowboy one 

season on the Little Missouri river, and Wood's ex- 
rience as contract surgeon, received their re- 


20 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


spective appointments. They raised a regiment of 
so-called cowboys in the eastern states and went 
to Florida. From Florida they embarked for Cuba, 
leaving their horses behind. They landed east of 
Santiago and started to the jungle for San Juan 
Hill, General Wood being the colonel of the regi- 
ment and Mr. Roosevelt acting as Lieutenant 
Colonel. f 

“About ten miles from San Juan they were 
ambushed by the Spaniards, and some of the Rough 
Riders were wounded in what was called the El 
Cano fight. They would have been eut to pieces, 
but General Caldwell, in command of some regi- 
ments of negro troops, rushed in two regiments 
of thesé colored regulars, and rescued Wood and 
his doughty colonel from the hands of the 
Spaniards. 

“The Rough Riders, all afoot—for they had left 
their horses back in ,Florida—then -proceeded to a 
field near the foot of Kettle hill, which blanketed 
San Juan hill, and remained there until General 
Caldwell and his colored troops took San Juan hill | 
from the Spaniards, After San Juan hill had been — 
captured, Colonel Wood and Lieutenant Colonel 
Roosevelt charged up Kettle hill where there was 
nothing but an old kettle which had been used for - 
evaporating sugar cane juice. There were no forti- 
fications, or trenches, or block houses, or Spaniards 
dead or alive, on Kettle hill. Yet Roosevelt in his 
book, ‘History of the Spanish War,’ says that he 
charged up San Juan hill and found the trenches 
full of dead Spaniards, with little holes in their 
foreheads, and that two Spaniards jumped up and 
ran away, and that he missed one of them, but 
eat the other with a shot in the back from his | 
revolver,”’ 


Thus, then, the senator from South Dakota 
tells the tale of the Rough Riders and Colonel 
at San Juan and thus we come to understand a 
little how it comes to pass that there fs no 
mention of the activities of the Rough Riders 
in the Beard school of history. Perhaps the en- 
gagement was of so small importance that it 
cut no figure. : 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 21 


But mark what follows, directly, when the 
Senator backs up his,statement by calling on 
the plain man to consult original sources, and 
mark also how a little carefully calculated 
glorification will tend to throw things out of 
perspective. To resume: 


‘“T=refer to the records of the War Department, 
which will show that Roosevelt had nothing to do 
with the taking of San Juan hill. I refer, also, to 
a pamphlet issued by Colonel Bacon, of Brooklyn, 
where he says that he secured the affidavits of 100 
soldiers and officers who were in the campaign to 
take Santiago, and that all of them testified that 
Roosevelt was not in the battle of San Juan hill, 
or, in fact, in any other battle except the ambush 
at El Caney. 


“Afterwards, when Roosevelt became President 
of the United States, he posed on horseback at 
Fort Meyer, and had his picture painted by a fa- 
mous German artist, charging up San Juan hill.” 


Was Roosevelt, the Roosevelt as soldier in 
Cuba, a kind of created figure elaborately con- 
_trived by ambitious journalists? Or was he a 
much maligned man? Or, applying common 
sense, aré we to conclude that he had an eye 
on the paramount issue, the grooming of him- 
self to the end that he might master men, using 
all means that came to hand? I think so. I 
‘think that all leaders of men cultivate the com- 
pelling personality in one way or another, play 
a part, making themselves appear, as Lodge 
_ wrote of Webster, “the embodiment of wisdom, 
dignity, and strength, divinely eloquent even 
if ‘uttering nothing’ but heavy commonplaces.” 
It was so that Garibaldi came to enjoy the 
worship of his followers, and Napoleon, and De 
Lesseps, and Cortez and a hundred others. 


o 


£2 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
And Theodore Roosevelt was deliberate, cal- 


culating, never without ,an eye on that par- © 


amount issue, never,. never. He trained himself 


as a lad, and the training became a habit. © 


“Having been..arather. sickly and awkward 


boy,” he says, “I was as a young man at first. - 


both nervous and distrustful of my own prow- 
ess. I had to train myself painfully and labori- 
ously, not merely as regards my body, but as 
regards my soul and spirit.” And having 


achieved one horizon, he was free to look to 


another, which other was the highest place his 
country could offer. And for that place it 
behooved him to groom himself in such way 
that he could control men. So prestige through 
admiration was a way, and a most excellent 
way. \ 

Therefor there was what we who aim be 
sophistication may call, in blunt language, 
strutting and posing, and my reading of history 
and knowledge of the doings of men in office 
leads me to believe that all or nearly all men 
in the public eye do strut and pose. And, if 
there is not deliberate showing off, then as 
historical characters step into the pages of 


history, their bad spots are carefully spongea a 
out and they are made to appear as if pos- . 


sessing all the virtues and none of the vices 
common to man and his heirs. Thus, who 
would dare teach his history class the fact that 
Adams and John Hancock, glorified as very 
perfect knights, had made considerable fortunes 
out of smuggling? (Amer. Rev. Fisher, p. 225), 
that the famous Boston Massacre was nothing 


more than a common piece of hoodlumism pro- — 


¥ 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 23 


voked by a boxing match? (John Adams, Works 
Vol. II, 229), that Samuel Adams was unthrifty 
and careless and had no liking for any busi- 
ness but politics? (Hosmer’s Life of Adams, p 
308). Instances might be multiplied, but 
enough. The crowd loves to be dazzled. The 
crowd is given to idealism. The crowd wants a 
saint and wants a prophet and he who knows 
well how to idealize the real will come within 
measureable distance of realizing his ideal. 
So, then, remembering that, we understand 
much. We understand that as the uniform is 
part of the war game, so are what we may cal! 
adventitious trappings part of the governing 
rame. It is advertising. It is more than that. 
It is a means of securing ascendency through 
admiration and, as McDougall holds in his 
Social Psychology, admiration results from a 
blending of wonder and subjection. Wonder 
draws the beholder towards the object, admira- 
tion humbles him before it. Consider that 
awhile, for it is the key to an understanding of 
much, very much. So, when President Coolidge 
took office, we had everything working at once 
and the world was flooded with stories framed 
to make the mob wonder and admire. There 
was the story of Coolidge and the shoemaker 
by way of awakening a fellow feeling between 
the new incumbent and the prosaic man of af- 
fairs. There was the wonderful tale of the new 
President’s father, an old farmer, administering 
the oath of office by the light of a coal oil 
lamp, and not one man out of a thousand 
stopped to wonder what kind of a man the 
son must have been when, earning a big salary, 


® . 4 


24 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT - 


in a day of home lighting plants, the father had 
no adequate illumination in the house. | 

So, applying common sense, we are forced to 
the opinion that Theodore Roosevelt, like many 
another who wrote his name large on the 
pages of history, was not above strutting and 
posing now and then. There was the picture 
of the San Juan hill incident then. There was 
also the picture of Mr. Roosevelt leaping his 
horse over a five barred gate. “A chance snap 
shot” the caption had it, but it was no chance 
picture at all. It was obviously an arranged 
exhibition, for photographers are not usually to ~ 
be found fully equipped and primed to take a 
picture in an out-of-the-way place of an im- 
promptu feat of horsemanship. Indeed, on the 
occasion in question, the horseman made five 
attempts before things came right and success 
in the leap synchronized with readiness on the 
part of the photographer. Then there was the 
affair near San Antonio when Mr. Roosevelt, 
taking a walk, “chanced” to come upon a rat- 
tlesnake and killed it. But the ubiquitous pho- 
tographer was there. So we must believe that 


it was an arranged spectacle for public con- — 


sumption. And Mr. Roosevelt knew, as well as 
hundreds of thousands of men who do not live 
in cities know, that there is nothing at all 
brave or rare or wonderful in the killing of a 
rattlesnake. Small boys have killed millions of | 
them with sticks and stones and with bare 
hands, and Theodore Roosevelt must have 
laughed in his sleeve seeing the picture and 
marking the fuss made about it. But the ma- | 
jority of men have not seen a rattlesnake — 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 25 


except behind glass and it is a very monster 
of terror in their imagination, so there was 
awakened a kind of awe, and not only awe, but 
an unrealized gratitude—in other words, be- 
cause of it, there was personal ascendency 
again. Theodore Roosevelt, I say, most wonder- 
fully seized the unusual as opportunity. 
Therefore he was a humbug, you say? Noth- 
ing of the sort. He had trained himself to be 
an executive and as an executive, he was, first 
of all, interesting, just as Boulanger was inter- 
esting, and Parnell, and Bismarck, and the 
Kaiser, and Dowie, and Barnum, and Cromwell, 
and Danton, and Napoleon. Always the atti- 
tude of power was sought, and properly so. 
Let a man once become an idol and hero by 
popular acclaim, and he is bound to appear to 
- pose. There is no escape. The common man 
forces that kind of thing upon him. The com- 
mon man idealizes common clay. And why? 
This, in language plain and simple is the an- 
swer. Because the common man is a creature 
of hope, always looking for an escape from the 
dull grind and monotony of life and, therefore, 
always expecting a savior and a‘ redeemer, po- 
litical as well as spiritual. On the other hand, 
the leader and executive capitalizes that ez- . 
pectation of the masses and by means of it 
gains control. If you want to go into the mat- 
ter further, read Enoch Burton Gowen’s admir- 
able study of the psychology of the Executive. 
But to emphasize the salient points, your would- 
be master of men enlists the imagination among 
the causes or factors that work for him. He 
knows very well that he is looked upon as a 


e 


26 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


hope for the dull plodder and a hope for better 
living conditions for the average man. There- 
fore, his appeal, coming down to foundations, 
is to the self-interest of his supporters. So it 
was that. Cortez won, and Pizarro won, and 
Magellan won. So also thus Caesar won be- 
cause of personal hopes aroused in the minds ° 
of his followers. What we call strutting and | 
posing, in plain words, are then tricks of the 
executive, and Roosevelt was an executive and 
a controller of men. Sebo 

Some strut one way, some strut another. 
The Wilson pose was that of the superior man, 
the quiet and strong man, the self-conscious 
man, the man accepting the applause of his in- 
feriors. It was exactly the professorial pose. 
The Roosevelt pose was that of the bold man, . 
the hero and fighter, the professional red 
blooded man. If he could win a popular ap- 
plause by posing for a photograph in company 
with a well known El Paso gambler, then with 
the gambler he would pose. Such of us who 
pride ourselves upon our wnconventionality 
would like him the better for it. But the day 
after, he would be every bit as willing to pose 
with a Methodist divine, whereupon the whole 
Methodist world would forget the gambler in- 
cident. And the unprejudiced in both non-con- 
ventional and orthodox camps would have 
nothing to say, would indeed dare say nothing, 
when, on the third day he invited Booker T: — 
Washington to tea. Pose, pose and pose. Roose- — 
velt was not alone in his posing, for men at 
the top have always posed, though the fact has — 
been lost sight of. Remember the Kaiser — 


oy 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 27 


helmeted and cloaked, a picturesque modern 
knight; Gladstone with his ax, symbolic of the 
-man laying the roots of things bare; Mr. Taft, 
the genial, with professional smile; Thomas 
Carlyle with despondent brow; Barnum looking 
the cheerful entertainer to the life; William 
Jennings Bryan as an eye-flashing reformer; 
bishops and church dignitaries in cassocks; 
university professors in gowns; pugilists with 
fists ready clenched for action; professional 
strong men fisting their biceps into promi- 
nence; George Bernard Shaw with saturnine 
smile; pianists with long hair; poets with af- 
fected mincing ways; potentates of secret or- 
ganizations all hung with trinkets and baubles. 
It is authority prestige that is sought and if 
authority prestige cannot be gained one way, 
then it is gained another—so Boss Cox of 
‘Cincinnati and Boss Croker of New York being 
unable to obtain the title of “great” gained 
their ends by getting the title of “good” and 
were hand in glove with Tom, Dick and Harry; 
organizing picnics, giving away turkeys, and 
beer, and loaves, and fishes. So also the 
Romans were offered pageants and circuses. 
Anything and everything to gain prestige— 
parades, posings, pictures, liveries, uniforms, 
costumes, ceremonies and blessed words. Above 
all, blessed words, for every executive knows 
the value of a phrase. The Big Stick—A Square 


-. Deal—The War to End War—Liberty, Equality 


and Fraternity— Remember the Maine — 
Duetschland uber alles—The Cross of Gold— 
Home Rule for Ireland—We Stand at Armaged- 
- don and We Battle for the Lord—The Ful} 


628 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT — 


Dinner Pail—Back to Normalcy—anything for. 
hoi polloi, anything to shift the attention and ~ 
gain votes. It is the attraction of illusion, you 
see. And, if any one doubts that Theodore 
Roosevelt was aware of the fact’ that he was 
playing a bart and that all the world is a 
stage, he is referred to Chapter 111 of the 
Roosevelt biography, or to the Outlook of April 
26th, 1912, pages 917 to 941. 


With something of that in mind then, we see 
that it does not really matter whether Roose- 
velt was the hero of San Juan or otherwise. 
What does matter is that he used the San Juan — 
story as a rung in his life’s ladder and used 
it well. The story of it became a kind of mega- 
phone by which he gained attention, just as 
Mark Twain’s humor was an attention attrac- — 
ter. By mass suggestion he was a hero, a lead- 
er, and a master of men. The incident gave 
him prestige and it was prestige that he want- 
ed, because he had other things in mind. 
Roosevelt at El Cano meant little or nothing. 
Roosevelt at San Juan meant much. For Roose- 
velt the master hand was not at all likely to 
confuse values. He was thoroughly convinced 
that what the mass worshipped was not ideals, 
but the appearance of success. We have his 
own words for that, written at the time of the 
Russo-Japanese Treaty signing. “It is enough 
to give anyone a sense of sardonic amusement 
to see the way in which the people generally, 
not only in my own country but elsewhere,. 
gauge the work purely by the fact that it 
succeeded. If I had not brought about peace I. 
should have been laughed at and condemned. 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 29 


Now I am over praised.’ There is a ring of 
Hugo in that, the Hugo who said that for the 
herd, success has nearly the same profile as 
supremacy. You see the real Roosevelt in it 
too, the Roosevelt cool and calculating, not at 
all the kind of man to be inebriated by the 
license of easy gain or by popular applause. 
You see Roosevelt the cool headed winner, one 
not likely to confuse values. It is a kind or 
key-note that he strikes, and I see him as one 
not at all likely to make the mistake of the 
political manipulator told of by Jane Addams 
in her ‘Democracy and Social Ethics”. (p. 257- 
8) who caused posters to be made representing 
on the one hand a fat and splendid alderman 
drinking champagne, while, seated at a well 
filled table on the other side, a bricklayer, ap- 
parently very honest and very poor. But, as 
Miss Addams says: ‘to the chagrin of the re- 
formers, however, it was gradually discovered 
that, in the popular mind, a man who laid 
bricks and wore overalls was not nearly so 
desirable for an alderman as the man who 
drank champagne and wore a diamond in his 
shirt front. The district wished its representa- 
tive to ‘stand up with the best of them’ and 
certainly some of the constituents would have 
been ashamed to have been represented by a 
bricklayer.” So I refuse to consider the megalo- 
mania theory, or the theory of pavonic display 
in the case of Mr. Roosevelt, but accept some- 
thing altogether different. In all the posing and 
flourishing is method, not madness. For the 
crowd is dazzled and lured by the gilding and 


30 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


lays immense stress on appearances, as all 
the world should know, but does not know. _— 

Mr. Roosevelt was either a man who willed 
to gain place or he was not. If he willed his 
way then, as an executive, he would naturally 
use every legitimate means to accomplish his 
purpose and to gain prestige as means to his 
desired end. He knew that he who would be a 
leader must stand in the limelight and not in 


the shadow of the wings. But if he was not — 


one who willed his way, then he was something 
altogether different and he must have had in 
him all the sublime self-surrender of a Boehme; 
a creature all compounded of sweetness and 
meekness, a creature of extreme gentleness 
he must have been, one that had been dragged 
by Duty from a peaceful retirement. And the 
last does not seem reasonable. That being so, 
he was not what he was so often called by the 
sentimentalists, a Man of Destiny, a pawn in 
the hands of sporting rubezahls. Not being the 
latter, he must have been what he said that he 
was: an individual who put himself in the may 
of things happening. 

Indeed, very effecthally he did ae) ead when 
1898 came, what with the spectacular picture 
of San Juan and the record that he had made 
as Police Commissioner, he was easily a win- 
ner in the battle for the Governorship of New 
York, in November, 1898, and, two years later, 
for nomination as Vice-President by the Re- 
publican party with President McKinley as 
chief.. So, when the twenty-fifth President was 
shot by a crazy fellow named Czolgosz, Theo- — 
dore Rocsevelt himself became chief citizen of — 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 3 


the United States. His first act was a confirma- 
tion of the policies of his dead chief, and, at 
the funeral, a firm refusal to allow his person 
to be surrounded by detectives and soldiers. 
The last I mention as the thing to please the 
crowd. Again he stood as the hero in the eyes 
of the world defying the banded assassins of 
the nation, and the world applauded, forget- 
ting that it was as unlikely for a similar thing 
to happen twice as it was for lightning to 
strike twice in the same place. Again you see 
ascendency through admiration. 

“Say to your commander,” he said to Mr. 
Wilcox, “that I revoked your orders. You must 
not follow this carriage....The vice-president 
requires no protection from any military or 
semi-military body in the streets of an Ameri- 
can city.” In that, the man in the street saw a 
most promising beginning significant of better 
thin~s. The plain man was come to rule. As 
for those who had in mind domestic affairs, 
there was the assurance that all would go: 
well and the policies under way would be con- 
tinued. So both attitudes made for an assur- 
ance of order, Later it became told that na- 
tional business was being done in unostenta- 
tious ways, that the White House would be open 
to representatives of the press, that Theodore 
Roosevelt would be a business man and not a 
ruler; that there would be no junketing and 
voyaging and entertaining—so there was a 
kind of national love feast for a time with all 
opposing parties rejoicing, and the goose hung 
high. 

Of course, the Jeffersonian simplicity was 


32 LIFE OF THRODORE ROOSEVELT 


goon abandoned. Looking ahead to bring things 


into focus, we find, in November of 1903, the 


executive guarded like a monarch when attend- © 


ing the funeral of a relative. The simple citi- 
zen of the republic had passed. But it is sig- 
nificant to notice that in spite of guards, a 


crazed fellow eluded the vigilance of the watch- 


men and handed the President some foolish 
letter. There is no moral except the moral that 
personal guards are no protection at all, and 
that President Roosevelt’s earlier stand was 
the more correct one, excepting of course that 
it was all a dramatic flourish made for public 
consumption, for it must be borne in mind that 
the great executive always makes prestige capi- 
tal out of everything. You will see that all 


through. You will see it in the other incident © 


when the lunatic shot at Roosevelt in Milwau- 
kee in 1912. “I do not care a rap for being 
shot,” he wrote. “It is a trade risk which 
every Lrominent public man ought to accept as 
a matter of course.” Something of the same 
expression was attributed to Emperor Frederick 
of Germany, to Alexander of Russia and to the 
late King Edward of England. It makes for a 


kind of modified sympathy with the ruler, who 


is supposed, in the public eye, to be going about — 


his business while under fire all the time. But 
there was another flourish made at the same 


time, a most gallant one with a hint of bravado — 


in it. I refer to the letter written to Lord Grey 
about the incident. It runs Mm part: | 


“IT can answer with. absolute certainty. Your. 
nerve would not have been affected in the least. — 


You would have made the speecr as a dayne ee o 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 33 


course. Modern Civilization is undoubtedly soft, 
and the average political orator or party leader, 
the average broker or banker, or factory owier, ut 
least when he is past middle age, is apt to be soft 
—I mean both mentally and physically; and such 
aman accepts being shot as an unheard of calamity 
and feels very sorry for himself, and thinks only of 
himself and not of the work in which he is en- 
gaged ... But a good soldier or sailor, or a deep 
sea fisherman, or railway man, or cowboy, or 
lumber jack, or miner, would normally act as 1 
acted without thinking anything about it.” 


You get there a ring of the cult of strenu- 
osity, the preaching of which gave Mr, Roose- 
velt a wealth of the sort of prestige he sought. 
Yet the man had the vitality he commends as 
well as the romantic attitude, though the deli- 
cately implied flattery of Lord Grey’s with 
regard to his robustness and disregard of ne 
ing bullets, reads oddly. 


But to reach back. After a few days in the 
White House the fun began. With the first 
presidential message came a plea for legisla- 
tion against the “deliberate demagogue” whicn 
has -fructified into all the present day anti-rea 
activity. Mr. Roosevelt’s favorite hate was 
“anarchy,” for the slayer of McKinley had de- 
clared himself to have been an anarchist, 
though he was merely a vulgar assassin ana 
a paranoiac like Guiteau or Booth, one full of a 
morbid egotism which took the direction of 
sentimentality. However, “anarchy” became 
the red flag at which the bull rushed and Mr. 
Roosevelt proposed to make an international 
crime of anarchy by treaties with European 
powers, though what the crime of anarchy was 
is not very clear. (Speaking of anarchy, 1 


34 i, ig! ik Ok THRODORE ROOSEVELT. 


have in mind: the individualistic philosopny | 
such as that propounded by Thoreau, or by Au- 
beron Herbert, or by Kropotkine and not the 


murderous flourishes of a Ravachol, or a Gur 


teau, being of the opinion of the Adelphi sage 
that ‘he who slays a king and he who dies for 


one are alike idolators.’’) As far as legislation — 
against an opinion, as Louis F. Post pointed 


out at the time, federal laws against an un- 
identified crime might be drafted in such way 
that they might be enforced against those who 


opposed this, that or the other as enacted by © 
an administration in office. Or they might be 
enforced against labor union speakers and pa- 


pers. 


tion was the key-nodte of the speech and Mr. 


; 


Other matters were dealt with. Centraliza- — 


Roosevelt recommended a new cabinet office — 


the function of which should be the zgovern- 


mentalization of American industries; also the 


enactment of anti-trust legislation with a con- 


stitutional amendment that would bring the 
business of the majority of corporations within 
federal jurisdiction, but with an especial eye 


to, the arrangement of matters so that the na- 


tion “might assume power of supervision and 


regulation over all corporations doing an inter-— 
state business.” Then came trouble as new — 


vistas opened up, and discussion waxed warm 


on many things into which we cannot go here _ 
—into far reaching questions of the concentra- — 
tion of wealth and income, of forces making 


for combination, of the corporation as an in- 


strument of concentration, of good trusts and 3 
bad, of proposed corporation reform. Discus- — 


— 


= ee 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 35 


sion rolled up like a storm cloud, growing year 
by year, until at last those most opposed to 
Theodore Roosevelt, those of the Socialist party 
for example, were quoting from his Special Mes- 
sage to Congress of January 31st, 1908. This 
for example: “There has been in the past grave 
wrong done innocent stockholders by over 
capitalization, stock watering, stock jobbing, 
stock manipulation....The man who makes an 
enormous fortune by corrupting legislatures 
and municipalities, and fleecing his stockhold- 
ers and the public, stands on the moral level 
with the creature who fattens on the blood- 
money of the gambling house and the saloon. 
....The rebate taker, the franchise trafficker, 
the manipulator of securities, the purveyor and 
protector of vice, the blackmailing ward boss, 
the ballot box stuffer, the demagogue, the mob 
leader, the hired bully and man killer—all 
alike work at the same web of corruption, and 
all alike should be abhorred by honest men,” 
For that seemed to ring true to all as a de- 
nouncement of the System. There was'also a 
plea for ship subsidies and some mention was 
made of the Philippines, with the suggestion 
that the natives of those islands were to be 
gradually made fit for self government. As to 
that last, with focussing in mind, this is the 
place to say that we find, a little later, Mr. 
Roosevelt declaring that as to the Philippines 
“the “lag will stay put” and, later (see Every- 
body’s Magazine for January, 1915) an article 
written by Mr. Roosevelt stating that he favors 
Philippine indepenents “at an early moment’ 
not, mark you, bevause it is the right thing to 


36 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


do, but because “the Philippines from a mili- 
tary standpoint are a source of weakness.” 
But that is matter for later discussion and 
does not concern us here. 

So, the first presidential message had hardly 
seen the light of nation-wide print before the 
love feast ceased and war was.on, with this 
side and that praising or blaming as the recom- 
mendations of the President made or did not 
make for the self interest of the parties con- 
cerned, and, according to the national custom, 
the president having been established in his 
place, one-half of the nation, more or less, 
began to lay plans to dethrone him. 

Acts are by no means immediate and well 
defined in their results and very much that 
Mr. Roosevelt did, by a kind of subtle trans- 
mission of effects, jolts us today. There is the 
matter of railroad rates, for example, a most 
peculiar chain of causes and effects. Looking | 
back, it would seem that Mr. Roosevelt had an 
idea that if all the railroads of the country 
were considered as a single property, then, by - 
taking into account the cost of capitalization 
and the value of the physical property at a 
given time, and also taking into account the 
cost of operation, it might be. possible to ar- 
rive at a just basis for rates to replace the 
haphazard and happy-go-lucky. method, witn 
rebates and discriminations and favoritisms, 
and the general plan of charging all that the 
traffic could or might be supposed to bear. 
So far so good. Soon the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, acting after due legislation, framed — 
a set of regulations which were issued to raii- 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 37 


roads, the purpose of which was to gather in- 
formation relative to the valuation of railroad 
property. That, to be sure, seemed to be sim- 
ple. But it had results far reaching. What, for 
instance, would be the depreciation of a right 
of way? Or would it depreciate? Was the 
cost of construction to be taken as a criterion? 
And so on. A thousand and one questions 
arose, and while railroad accountants strove 
honestly in most cases to arrive at a decision, 
the decision was not arrived at, nor is yet. 
Then, too, the attempt to find a reasonable 
valuation meant the setting up of all kinds of 
new accounts, of a mountain of engineering 
work, of new offices and new expenses, and, 
soon, there was a raising of rates to meet the 
new expense engendered. With that came, as 
always, the rising cost of commodities. For, 
if you will but consider, it must be plain that 
a raise in rates on freight means several in- 
creases in final costs. That is, the raw material 


_ costs more, and so also the finished material, 


a double or treble charge often resuits. To 
exemplify. Say we have a wagon spoke fac- 
tory here in the hard wood district of Arkan- 
sas. Obviously the rough.material would cost 
more if the rate on post wood is raised. That 
is raise number one. The finished spokes being 
shipped from Arkansas to South Bend, Ind., 
would have to pay.a higher rate and the third 
charge for the finished wagon back to Arkan- 
sas would take the higher rate and thus the 
price of the wagon as sold to the farmer would 
have to include the aggregate of the increases, 
for it is human to pass the charge along. That 


38 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


needs no argument or explanation. So, fie 
creased charges would very soon be felt, and > 


with the higher cost of living would come the 
higher demand for wages, and wages again 
would make for increased cost on commodi- 


ties. Consequently the railroad and other 
unions began to put on pressure and, after — 


bluff and threats and sulkings and national 
nervousness, got what they wanted. But the 
unorganized man got little or nothing. Then, 
confronted with the increased wage, the rail- 


t 


roads asked for a raise in freight rates. That 


again meant increased costs of living which 


meant again increased wages. And so things 


went, round and round like a squirrel in a cage, 


much fruitless activity and no net progress, 
much energy with no result. But all that did 


not mean improved conditions, for, as I have . 


said, the organized industries alone got a 
slice of the cake, the unorganized suffered 
more and gained nothing, or next to nothing. 


If you doubt that, the evidence is plain, and 


any one interested may take the annual reports 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission from 
the years of President Roosevelt down to today 
and, turning to the tables showing labor costs, 
easily verify. As for the increased cost of liv- 
ing, that needs no proof. But one thing more. 


With the increased freight costs engendered by 


thoughtless governmental action growth was 
stimulated, not caused, but stimulated, in a 
new direction. For an impetus was given to the 
improvement of the gas engine and the auto- 
mobile, and the auto truck appeared, so that 


merchants everywhere commenced to invest in 


a a 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 39 


trucks and, where possible, to do their own 
hauling. So we have, today, a marked phase 
of evolution in transportation when private in- 
dividuals in heavy trucks operate along the 
highways, for the upkeep of which they pay 
comparatively little, and while so operating, 
compete with railroads whose trains move over 
private rights of way, on roadbeds whose main- 
tenance is a heavy cost. The consequence is 
that hundreds of miles of railroads have been 
abandoned and in some cases dismantled, and 
hundreds of miles more must follow suit.. Into 
all of this other features have entered. From 
the causes initiated at the instigation of Mr. 
Roosevelt vast results have grown, and condi- 
tions which would have come about anyway, 
were unduly hastened; evils were exacerbated. 
Still, there were evils and Mr, Roosevelt did 
not hesitate in attacking them. The trouble is 
that interdependence is not always considered 
when political moves are first mooted and law- 
makers are not given to dwell on the effect 
of elaborate co-ordination. As for the structure 
of modern industrial society, it seems rarely 
to be considered. Much, very much indeed 
grew out of that recommendation of President 
Roosevelt’s that matters should be so arranged 
that the nation “might assume power of super- 
vision and regulation over all corporations do- 
ing an interstate business.” 

International. relations were on a raw edge 
in those days. For blustering nations armed to 
the teeth, glaring at one another in hate, seek- 
ing expansion, jealous and greedy, are no new 
and modern thing. In 1902 England was at war 


ca 


40 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOUSEVELD- 


with the Boers and Mr. Roosevelt played his — 
cards well. For there was no lack of Boer 
sympathisers in the country and the fact was — 
pressed home by them that there was, at New > 
Orleans, what was tantamount to a British army > 
supply station which had been there for al- 
most three years. The pro-Boers considered 
that, doubtlessly with. justice, a flagrant breach 
of neutrality laws. It was pointed out that, by 
the treaty of Washington between the United 
States and England, it had been decided that 
“a neutral government . . . is bound not to 
permit or to suffer either belligerent to make 
use of its ports or waters . . . for the pur- 
pose of the renewal or augmentation of military 
supplies.” : 

It may be seen that there was nothing very 
elaborate or complex about the question and 
the wording of the law was clear as. crystal. 
The presence of a British army supply station 
was a breach of neutrality and there was no 
mistake about it. Governor Heard of Louisiana ~ 
asked the authorities at Washington ‘whether 
the state could expel the British supply station 
without impinging upon Federal authority, and 
so the ticklish question was on the board. — 

Now for the purpose of my essay, the rights 
and wrongs have nothing to do with the case. 
Opinions differ according to sympathies. What 
does concern us is how Roosevelt, the ex- 
ecutive, gets out of the dilemma. Plainly he 
would not want to break with England. Plain- 
ly he would not wish to alienate his supporters 
who were pro-Boer. A weak man or poor ex- 
ecutive would have hesitated and played fast 


Se  . 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 41 


and loose with the game, but not so Mr. Roose- 
velt. He was a boss and a master, and an ex- 
ecutive who had the stranglehold, a skilful 
manipulator. So there was an understanding 
between statesmen, whatever that may imply. 
The President ordered an investigation into 
the law and the facts, and Colonel E. H. Crow- 
der of the American army, was designated to 
inquire into the case and went to New Orleans 
where he “exchanged notes” with Captain 
Fenner, the British officer who was in charge 
of, and directing, the loading of the British 
transports. So there were reports, and find- 
ings, and opinions and such time passed, durin 
which England had what she wanted to enable 
her to fight her war and the mouths of the 
objectors were effectively closed. Then when 
the storm had died down, President Roosevelt 


decided that the act was not a breach of neu- 


trality'and that Americans had a perfect right 
to sell munitions of war to either belligerent 
in the regular course of commerce, which last, 
doubtless satisfied the munition dealers. 

The point to emphasize is that your executive 
is not necessarily a man of exact justice. For 
Mr. Roosevelt seemed to have done something 
with which small fault could be found, but 
actually he evaded the real point at issue with 
great dexterity. And the real point was this, 
as you will see. It was a breach of neutrality 
for a British army depot to exist on neutral soil 
where munitions of war were stored and from 
which they were shipped; not, mark you, in 
commercial vessels, but upon war vessels, and 
directly to the seat of war. And certainly, the 


42 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT — 


neutral country in this case did permit one of 
the belligerents to make use of its port “for 
the purpose of the renewal . . . of military 
supplies.” And yet there is another side to 
consider. I refer to the Roosevelt speech of 
May, 1915, in the case of the Worla War.. 
Thus: anata) i 


“The manufacturing and shipment of arms and 
ammunition to any belligerent is moral.or immoral. 
according to the use to which the arms and muni- 
tions are to be put. If they are to be used to pre- 
vent the redress of the hideous wrongs inflicted 
upon Belgium, then it is immoral to ship them, If 


they are to be used for the redress of these wrongs, — 


and the restoration of Belgium to her deeply 
wronged and unoffending, ,people, then ‘it is emi- 
nently moral to send them.”’ 


Here we must ponder a moment, There 
seems to be a peculiarity somewhere. Wither a 
nation is neutral or it is not. Rights and 
wrongs per se have nothing to do with the case. 
The words quoted seem to speak well of Mr. 
Roosevelt’s heart but poorly of his head, for 
clearly logic is thrown to the wind. Obviously, 
he would seem to wish to set up his private 
sympathies and ideas of right and wrong in 
place of international law, so that neutrality 
would mean nothing, Was it right to permit 
the shipment of arms while remaining techni- 
cally neutral? The answer would seem to de- 
pend upon the viewpoint of the chief executive, 
according to the passage quoted. The incident 
seems to throw a light upon the mental pro- 
cesses of Theodore Roosevelt which is a MAREE 
to be taken up later. 

There was another little storm that bid Pala 


% 


Se 


es eS 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 43 


to grow into a furious tornado but was nar- 
rowly and skillfully averted so that public ad- 
verse sentiment was checkmated. For General 
Miles was publicly rebuked for having charac- 
terized as unduly severe, military conduct in 
the Philippine islands. That “severe” was a 
mild word to use seems now clear, according 
to the report of the Senate investigating com- 
mittee, or, if you read a more recent work, 
“The Course of Empire,” by R. F. Pettigrew 
{Boni & Liveright.) So severe, that I find the 
passage that follows in a loyal Republican pa- 
per, the Chicago Record Herald (issue of April 
12th, 1902): 


‘It is clearly exceeding its powers and rights 
as a branch of representative. government which 
is responsible to the American public whatever! the 
truth may be... It is Known beyond doubt that 
it has censored press dispatches to the perversion. 
of the truth, that it has concealed the facts con- 
cerning the outrageous mis-management of the fi- 
nances in the transport service, and lastly that its 
policy with regard to the stories of Weylerism in 
the Philippines has been one of persistent deceit 
... the situation as we know it today brings shame 
upon us all. District after district burned, natives 
tortured, a population mercilessly cut down, and to 
crown all, editors imprisoned arbitrarily, not. for 
sedition, but for printing stories of corrupt prac- 
tices in American Administration. The liberty of 
the press, with accountability for its abuse, is 
ruthlessly violated by the military authorities in 
the Philippines in wanton defiance of the first 
principle of American law. Surely the indictment 
is one that demands something more than protesta- 
tions and excuses from Secretary Root.” 


That has reference to many things, to out- 
rages, to water cures, to torturings and to the 


t admission of General Smith that he had issued 


44 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
orders to Major Waller to kill the natives and 
burn their homes; that he had issued orders ta 
make Samar a howling wilderness; that he had 
ordered all persons capable of bearing arms to 
be killed; and that he had ordered this ruthless 
killing specifically to include boys above ten 
years. In Other words, there were doings de- 
cidedly worse than those proven against the 
Germans in Belgium. 


Now this is not the place to shed tears over 
the horrors of war. For legalized murder is’ 
horrible and there is no curbing the tiger once 
roused. The point that concerns us is this. 
The investigating committee had met and 
talked and noted and examined, as is the 
way of such bodies, but the real truth seems 
to have been consistently suppressed, and when 
General Miles made his accusation, not only 
had a public rebuke been administered, but it 
had been denied that there was any severity. 
Yet we find, a little later, President Roosevelt 
writing to the Bishop of Massachusetts an 
open letter in which he says: “I hope it is 
unnecessary to say that no one in the com- 
munity can be more anxious than I am—save © 
perhaps Secretary Root—to discover and pun- 
ish every instance of barbarity by our troops 
-in the Philippines... . Long before any state- 
ment had been made public, and before any 
action had been taken by Congress, the war 
department had ordered a rigid investigation 
of certain of the charges, including the charges 
of Major Gardener, the orders of investigation 
os regards these particular charges having — 
gone out three months ago.” 


~~. 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 45 


There you see what the world calls diplo- 
macy. You see, also, evidence of that organi- 
zation of idolatry, as Shaw called it, which is 
the art of government. It is a case of my 
country (my government) right or wrong. And 
what is your philosopher or your perfectly 


honest man to do within the endless chain of 


cause and effect? Fraud and force are the 
cardinal virtues in war and in the aftermath 
of war, and the purely moral sphere is a sphere 
altogether removed from the sphere political. 
So why not admit it, not endeavoring idly to 
paint this man and that in public life as a 
saint unspotted from the world? As a good 
executive, Mr. Roosevelt knew that the publie 
has a short memory, knew as well as you know 
and I know that in the case of a controversy 
the easiest thing in the world is to draw a 
herring across the controversial trail. An exec- 
utive not knowing that is not worth his salt. 
So people reading the letter to the Bishop 
doubtless overlooked the fact that in the case 
of the Miles rebuke the statement that the war 
had been conducted with undue severity was 
not only denied, but it was asserted, without 
evidence to back the accusation, that the war 
had been conducted with marked humanity. 
But why go on? Not a man in ten millions of 
men can hold office and adhere to high prin- 
ciples of honor and justice at one and the same 
time. You simply can’t serve God and Mam- 
mon and power does, as Burke said it did, 
gradually extirpate human and gentle virtues. 


~You cannot have a saint in power so there is 


no use in pretending that those in power are 
saints. A Dostoyeffsky with a primitive Christ 


AG LIFE. OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


in the depths of his heart would be but a 
puppet in the White House or in Buckingham | 
Palace. Perhaps it is because of that, because 
of a dim realization of a truth, that we insist 
upon keeping theorists out of power, There is. 
sound sense in the Dooley philosophy, indeed: 
“It is a good thing preachers don’t go to Con- 
gress. Whin they’re ca’am they’d wipe out all 
the laws, an’ whin they’re excited they’d wipe 
out all th’ popylation, They’re niver two jumps — 
from th’ thumbscrew.” So it comes about that 
so many not tinged with sentimentality refuse 
to see a halo about the head of the man. in 
office. And, indeed, there is scriptural hint — 
anent that, for men have been warned against 
putting their trust in princes and in the sons 
of men, there being no salvation in them. To 
be sure now and then a man of unbending 
ideals does get into office, but humanity looks 
to it that no one shall stand head and shoul- 
ders above the crowd. Witness Lincoln. The 
tall tree is always lopped to preserve the 
average. 

So Mr. Roosevelt, like theusanae befor and 
after him, had sometimes to run with the hare 
and hunt with the hounds to the end that he 
might well play his own game. For your exec- 
utive, when his elevation depends upon a 
majority, must often be the man in the middle 
of the teeter board. Remember, too, that they 
were days when the flag-waving and _ brass- 
lunged patriot was particularly busy talking 
about national destiny and new glories and all 
the rest of it. They were days in which the © 
dreams of Washington and Jefferson, so income 
patible with the new dreams Of eerie were re 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 47 


largely forgotten. And a time-serving press 
was doing its work with the figure of Hearst 
looming large. Then, too, Theodore Roosevelt 
was not exactly president in his own right, but 
rather an accident, and he had to groom him- 
self to succeed himself. Hence much, if we 
examine closely, that had an appearance of 
playing fast and loose with principles. 


But we have to thank that fine executive 
ability for many things, if we accept the philo- 
sophic attitude of all being potential in the 
primal mist and therefore unescapable, and 
so relinquish the Wilfred Scaven Blunt view- 
point that imperialism and national extension 
is an error and that the task undertaken by a 
nation of ruling other nations against their will 
is the most certain step to national ruin. For 
there are many others besides Blunt, wise men 
and thoughtful, who hold that it is impossible 
to exercise tyrannical authority abroad and 
retain a proper respect for liberty at home. 
So Mr. Roosevelt, the executive, immovably 
obstinate in purpose, put through his Reclama- 
tion act, his Canal act, the Venezuelan affair, 
and settled the anthracite coal strike. Then, 
in quick succession came the Elkins Rebate 
act, the Alaskan boundary settlement and the 
incident of the Panama republic about each 
of which dozens of pages might be written, 
pages of idle argument. But everywhere you 
have the attitude of power, that and effective 
effort. He was never, apparently, hesitant and 
everywhere he overcame opposition. So the 
time came (November, 1904) when Theodore 
Roosevelt was able to say “I am glad to be 
President in my own right,’ when he was 


48 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT ~— 


elected over Alton B. Parker, and there stands 
out during his administration the Forest Home- 
stead act, the famous Hepburn Rate bill, the 
Pure Food laws (so sadly disregarded during 
the world war and after) and the retirement 
in 1909 in favor of William Howard Taft. Swiit 
2S a moving picture things seem to have been 
accomplished, approve or not as one may, ac- 
cording to his political lights. What does con- 
cern us is the fine way in which the man 
iurned things to his credit, cutting across lots, 
as it were, to accomplish his purpose, brushing 
aside non-essentials, pooh-poohing the solemn 
and absurd old fogies who would talk and talk 
and talk. Mark the lively ring in this, con-. 
cerning the Panama affair: ‘Panama declared 
itself independent and wanted to complete the 
Panama canal and opened negotiations with us. 
I had two courses open. I might have taken 
the matter under advisement and put it before 
the Senate, in which case we would have had 
a number of most able speeches on the sub- 
ject, and they would have been going on now, 
and the Panama canal would be in the dim 
future yet. We would have had a half century 
of discussion and perhaps the Panama canal. 
I preferred we should have the Panama canal 
first and the half century of discussion after- 
wards.” There is characteristic directness. 
And, too, the man had a wonderful talent for 
stirring up things. That, I think, is his evi- 
dence of his recognition of the fact that the 
successful executive succeeds in maintaining 
interest. Its opposite is apathy, and apathy 
means and invites opposition and therefore 
early defeat. ae 


aK 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 49 


ROOSEVELT THE CITIZEN 


Hardly two weeks had passed when Theo- 
dore Roosevelt was on his way to Africa to 
collect specimens for the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute and therein lies a story which you may 
read for yourself in his ‘‘African Game Trails.” 
He is not in the executive field, so we have 


nothing to do with that period in his life, un- 


til he lands at. Cairo in March, 1910, and then 
things are as if a Gulliver had burst upon 
Lilliputians. For there was a speech made to 
the Mohammedan students which was as a 
firebrand flung in their faces and it was fol- 
lowed by an address in London at the Guildhall 
in which he said, as keynote: “Hither you (the 
British ruling classes) have the right to be in 
Egypt or you have not, either it is or it is 
not your duty to establish and keep order. 

. . Some nation must govern Egypt. I hope 
and believe that it is your duty to be that 
nation.” 

You get some idea of the stir that his speech 
made by referring to the newspapers of the 
day, or, more concentrated in the way of bitter 
hate, by the entry in the Blunt Diary of April 
25th, 1910. “The Egyptian papers,” writes 
Blunt, “have been full of Roosevelt’s adventure 
at Cairo, and the speech he made to University 
students in praise of British rule. He is a 
buffoon of the lowest American type, and 
roused the fury of young Egypt to the boiling 
point, and it is probable that if he had not 
cleared straight out of the country there would 
have been mischief. From Egypt he went to 


50 


THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 


’ f x 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 51 


Rome and had a quarrel with the Pope and he 
is now at Paris airing his fooleries, and is to 
go to Berlin, a kind of mad dog roaming the 
world.” 


And again, June 2nd, 1910, in the Diaries: 
“That swine, Roosevelt, has made another 
speech, this time at the Mansion House, about. 
Egypt, worse than before.” 


Again, June 7th, “Homer Davenport, a 
Yankee friend of Roosevelt’s, and a breeder 
of Arab horses, was here today. He is an 
amusing fellow, came over with Roosevelt as . 
newspaper correspondent for the ‘New York 
World.’ He tells me that he has no very high 
opinion of Roosevelt’s intellect, and treats his 
pronouncement about Egypt and other things 
as an overflow of nonsense and high spirits 
rather than as anything more serious. Roose- 
velt, he says, is sure to be named President 
again, as he amuses the American people ... .” 


In other words Theodore Roosevelt had 
taken snap judgment. That must be borne in 
‘Mind for it means much. It means a light 
shed on the man and his mental processes. It 
is a telltale straw which shows a marked 
tendency. As executive, snap judgment is in- 
terpreted as quick decision and errors are 
remedied by subordinates, or modified in the 
working out. As private citizen it is some- 
thing altogether different. But fuller consid- 
eration must wait awhile. 


Davenport’s prediction came true and Roose- 
velt did aim at the Presidency again. For 


- there was the Taft-Roosevelt imbroglio when 


7 it was said, on the one hand, that Roosevelt 


52 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT © 


rebelled at the Taft unprogressiveness, and, on 
the other, that Taft found Roosevelt guilty of 
javoritism in the matter of Trusts. Nor can 
it be denied that many passages in Roosevelt’s 
speeches revealed a position at variance with 
his former stand. There was the peculiar at- 
titude manifested in the Detroit speech of May, 
1916, when he, being in full career in advocacy 
of governmental preparedness for war, yet at 
the same time denounced all and sundry who 
made profit from war—but also took stand 
against the government armor plate factory, 
thus seeming to stand foursquare for the pri- ’ 
vate manufacture of army material. Of con- 
trast the “fair deal’ rallying cry with his 
threatened action in the case of the striking 
coal miners (speech at Battle Creek, Mich., 
September 30th, 1916), when according to his 
own statement he had arranged with the Lieu- 
tenant General of the army, “to put the army 
in possession of the mines,’ and the officer 
named to be treated “as the receiver to run — 


the mines.” Yet, in the same speech fault was | 


found with President Wilson’s policy in the 
railroad dispute. But we must skip over much, 
including the admission that Mr. Roosevelt had 
pledged himself not to run as candidate for 
the Presidency again, skip over the affair of 
the merger of the Tennessee Coal and Iron 
Company with the Steel Trust. 

“Qn February. 25th, 1912, Mr. Roosevelt an- 
nounced himself as candidate for the Republi- 
can nomination for the Presidency, and in June 
he was defeated at the National Convention. 
Then followed his nomination by the Pro- 

_ gressive Party and the spectacular business iat: 


abla ey 
POD ve ie 


* 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 53 


standing at Armageddon and battling for the 
Lord, and the subsequent election of Woodrow 
‘Wilson. But they were the days of amazing 
things—of members of the Ananias club—of 
epithets hurled—of a proposition for the recall 
of judicial decisions—of railing against bad 
trusts and praising good trusts—political hys- 
terics, of course, much sound and little sense 
on all sides. Plainly the Roosevelt of these 
days was not the cool headed Roosevelt of the 
pre-African trip, and there is reason for sus- 
picion that the jungle fever left him weak- 
ened. 


Yet that would not account for the curious 
appearance of what may be termed mild in- 
consistency, for such there was. The “good” 
and ‘‘bad” trusts for instance, and that peculiar 
viewpoint on neutrality, and the amazing propo- 
sition for the recall of judicial decisions, and 
the frequent breaking loose from the bonds of 
prescription, perhaps the hasty judgments and 
the too swift decisions. Sometimes he seemed 
to leap from one extreme to the other and 
George Sylvester Viereck has written a little 
book about the manner of man he was, from 
the Viereck standpoint, accusing Roosevelt of 
having made himself the mouthpiece of Old 
World Imperialism. Viereck holds that Roose- 
velt cannot be explained without the theory of 
“ambivalence” and finds him “a typical in- 
stance of bi-polarity,” this master of men who 
was at one and the same time a “faithful 
Patroclus and the treacherous Apache,” a “Sim- 
ple Simon and Machiavelli rolled into one.” 
But it seems to me that if it is necessary to 
tag the man, there need be no search for new 


¢ 


54. LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


terms, no “bi-polarities” or Freudianisms. 
Rather there should be common sense and 
plain language. 

Suppose we survey the names of great men 
for a moment, putting down those that occur 
to mind, haphazardly. Take any names that 
have stood the test of time so as to get a 
kind of standard or measuring stick. Take 
Emerson, Dr. Johnson, Aristotle, Euclid, Car- 
lyle, Spencer, Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Henry — 
George, Walt Whitman, Kant, Ruskin, Mon- 
taigne, Darwin, Thoreau, Matthew Arnold. 
Here we have men of ali times, men of all de- 
grees, men of many nations and of many call- 
ings and professions. Hundreds more might 
be included but these will be sufficient as 
representing the worlds of thought and action 
and feeling. Now of the names so chosen, set- 
down a few, putting against them what seems 
to be their chief characteristic. Thus we might 
say of Emerson that he has no reasoned and 
complete system of philosophy resting on a 
few axioms, and there springs to mind Hmer- 
son’s saying: “Your consistency explains noth- 
ing.’ Now take Thomas Carlyle. You see him 
at once as an uncompromising truth-teller with 
a profound belief in realities, building today 
on the foundations laid yesterday. Next ex- 
amine Walt Whitman and you will remember | 
his “You say I contradict myself? Well, then, 
I contradict myself.” For Matthew Arnold, 
especially regarding his “Literature and Dog- 
ma,” you will write that he sought to establish 
an undogmatic and rationalized religion. In 
John Stuart Mill you see a man of sincerity 
of mind with intellect of diamond-like clarity. 


LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 55 


In Charles Darwin the patient investigator. 
So, one by one consider your men. Then ask 
yourself how this one or that would have got 
along with Theodore Roosevelt in argument. 
You have seen how Blunt clashed with him. 
Suppose then Theodore Roosevelt discussing, 
we will say, neutrality, with one or two of 
the men we have in mind. It is quite conceiv- 
able to me that he would have got along very 
well indeed with Emerson, and Emerson in turn 
would have got along very well with Roosevelt 
when Hmerson said, in a flash of inspiration, 
“The only right is what is after my constitu- 
tion; the only wrong what is against it.” For 
the sentiment expressed is akin to the senti- 
ment of Roosevelt. But would Mr. Roosevelt 
have been very happy in the company of the 
cold thinker who wrote ‘First Principles’? 
I think not. Nor would the author of “Progress 
and Poverty,” or the author of the “Critique 
of Pure Reason” have approved of that light 
flinging aside of what had been said before. 
For Kant, and George, and Darwin, ar] 
Spencer, and Matthew Arnold, and Mill were 
each of them men who built up an orderly and 
logical system, testing this and testing that 
before they took another step. Like Euclid or 
Aristotle they start from this point and pro- 
ceed to that. Stiff and remote from the world 
of men they applied the test of eternal princi- 
ples. What they had in mind was the coherent 
whole. Mark Arnold, building up his agnostic 
philosophy on that strange and interesting in- 
terpretation of tthe word ‘Eternal’ in one of 
the most splendid chapters in literature. Mark 
Darwin the patient observer, the first to enter 


56 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 


a new realm of thought, pointing out how varia- — 
tions in living things are made permanent in 
their descendants, and from that small be- 
ginning actually doing something that modi- 
fied the world’s philosophical views of life. 

With that for a start, a very little selection | 
is necessary. In fact, names seem almost to 
fall on this side and that; Darwin to stand with 
Euclid and Aristotle, and Copernicus, and 
Comte, and Hinstein, and Jefferson, and Mill, 
and Spencer, and Kant. 

But obviously the name of Emerson does not 
fit here. So we consider the mind type of an- 
other class and we find men in a respect more 
free in their mental activities, more keenly 
alive to fresh impressions, more sensitive to 
the doings and the thoughts of men, quick as 
a diamond to flash back a tinted ray of light— 
the humanists, in short. They seem to be of 


the mettle of the character of Shakespeare © 


whose heart was’ the bell and his tongue the 
clapper thereof. With them, anew idea is 
not brought to the test of anything already ac- 
cepted, and past conclusions are not consid- 
ered. Yet they, too, are most excellent men 
and without them the world would be dismally 
poor, for of their type was Byron, and Shelley, 
and Scott, and Milton, and Mahomet, and | 
Penn and a hundred thousand others. Dr. John- 
son too, in spite of all his prejudices, and — 
Emerson, and Whitman, and Ruskin, and 
Montaigne. And of that type was Theodore 
Roosevelt. It was the mind of a man who was - 
of his day, swaying and bending readily ac- 
cording to circumstances and changing condi- 
ticns, the mind of a man who would not re- 


wiFE OF THHODORE ROOSEVELT 57 


press an impuise. In short, you incline either 
to Aristotle or to Plato, and to the latter Theo- 
dore Roosevelt inclined. 

Of the man’s life there is little more to be 
said in this place. Tens of thousands of us 
do not agree with him, differed from him in- 
-deed most heartily because of his conduct dur- 
ing the World War, but, after all, he ran true 
to form. For it was his belief that each na- 
tion had its peculiar mission to perform and 
the mission of America, he thought, was sim- 
ilar to the mission of England, as interpreted 
by the Imperialists. “We must play a great 
part in the world, and especially . . . per- 
form those deeds of blood, of valour, which 
above everything else bring national renown.” 
(The Strenuous Life.) You see there the ideal 
which is the ideal of England’s expansionists 
~ who proclaim that the mission of England is 
“perhaps the loftiest ever assigned to a peo- 
ple, and it parallels the old German viewpoint 
too, the viewpoint expressed by the German 
Chancellor (February 15th, 1915) that ‘God has 
assigned to the German people a place in the 
_ world and a role in history which demand con- 
tinual sacrifices.’” And, of course, so long as 
nation after nation hugs such ideals to the 
heart, so long must there be war and blood- 
shed and mutual hate. And Roosevelt believed 
in the fighting nation. His words in that Mes- 
sage to Congress of December, 1906, has a 
ring like the words of Treitschke: ‘It must 
be remembered that even to be defeated in 
eaten be better than not to have fought 
at. ral,” 

Foy Roosevelt was impulsive and his ideal 


58 LIFE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT = 


was an impulsive nation. The counsel of per- — 
fection that bids us turn the other cheek had 
no health in it for him. “It must be kept in 
mind,” he said in his 1906 message to Con- 
gress, “that war is not merely justifiable, but 
imperative, upon honorable men and upon an 
honorable nation when peace is only to be 


obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious con- — 


victions or of national welfare.” In short, he 
was heartily with Bernhardi in holding that 
between states. the only check on injustice is 
force. And Viereck is heartily right in saying © 
that neutrality was contrary to the Roosevelt 
nature. 


But the Roosevelt I like best, the Roosevelt 
we all like best, is the man with the son who — 
faced death, the man in whose heart was the ~ 
sting of bereavement. There is no flourish 
then, no idle word spoken, but a manly cry of — 
anguish. For Theodore Roosevelt speaks then 
for a million fathers less articulate but feeling 
no less strongly. ; 


“Only those are fit to live who do not fay to 
die ; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from 
the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and 
death are part of the Great Adventure. Never yet 
was worthy adventure worthily carried through by 
the man who put his own personal safety first. 
Never yet was a country worth living in unless its 


sons and daughters were of that stern stuff which — 
bade them die for it at need; and never yet was ae 


a country worth dying for unless its sons and 
daughters thought of life not as something con- 
cerned only with the selfish evanescence of the in- 


dividual, but as a link in the great chain of crea- 
tion and causation, so that each person is seen in a 


true relation as an essential part of the whole.” 


LITTLE BLUE BOOK SERIES 59 


Other Little Blue Books 


Biography 
5 Life of Samuel 
Macaulay. 
393 Life of Irederick the Great. 


Macaulay. 
33 Brann: Smasher of Shams. 


Gunn. 

812 Life and Works of Laurence 

: Sterne. Gunn. 

429 Life and Works of Jonathan 
Swift. Gunn. 

§22 Life of Thomas Paine. 


Gunn, 

§23 Life of Benjamin Franklin. 
Gunn. 7 

51 Bruno. His Life and Mar- 


Johnson, 


tyrdom. Turnbull. 

69 Life of Mary, Queen of 
Scots. Jumas. ; 

88 Vindication of Paine. 
Ingersoll. 

123 Life of Madame du Barry. 
Tichenor. 

183 Life of Jack London. 
Tichenor. 

323 Life of Joan of Arc. 
Tichenor. 

843 Life of Columbus. 
Tichenor. 

128 Julius Caesar: Who He 
Was and What He Ac- 
complished. 

139 Life of Dante. 

141 Life of Napoleon. Yinger. 

328 Joseph Addison and His 
Time. IY inger. 

339 Thoreau: The Man Who 
Escaped From the Herd. 


Finger. 
394 Boswell’s Life of Johnson. 
Finger. 
395 Autobiography of Cellini. 
Finger. 
412 Life of Mahomet. Finger. 
Life of Barnum: The Man 
Who Lured the Herd. : 
Finger. 
Maretan 
finger. 


and the Pacific. 


| 526 Life of Julius 


for Greek and 


142 Bismarck and the German 
Empzce. Bowicke. 

147 Crowell and His Times. 
227 Keats: The Man, His 
Works, and His tvienas, 
236 State and Heart Affairs of 

Henry VIII, 
269-270-271-272 Contemporary 
Portraits. 4 Vols. — Harris. 
824 Life of Lincoln, Bowers. 
433 Life of Marat. Gottschalk. 
438-439 Secret Memoirs of 
Madame de Pompadour. 2 
Malad eee pone ar- 
range y Jules eaujoint. 
490 Life of Michelangeto” (as 
Seen by Georg Brandes). 
Moritzen, 
°06 Life of Voltaire (as Seen 
by Georg Brandes), 
Moritzen. 


525 Life of Goethe. (as Seen by 
Georg Brandes). Moritzen. 

Caesar (as 
Seem by- Georg Brandes). 
Moritzen. 

518 The Life and Works of. 
Charles Dickens. Swasey. 
521 Tafe of John Brown. Gold. 
666-667 Sarah Bernhardt As I 

Knew Her. 2 Vols. Dorian. 


Drama 


(See ‘Literature ( Ancient)’ 
Roman Drama. 
See ‘Shakespeare’ for Shake- 
spearean Plays and Criticism. 
See “Oscar Wilde,’’ See 
“Wrench Literature’ for Mo- 
liere, Victor Hugo and Maeter- 
linck. See ‘‘Ibsen, Henrik.’’) 
0 The Mikado. Gilbert. 


| 226 The Anti-Semites. 


' Schnitzler. 

308 She Stoops to Conquer. 
Goldsmith. 

335 The Land of Heart’s De- 
sire. Yeats. 


35° Pippa Passes. Browning. 


ah 


49 
oo 
fg A 


Go 


3 Embers. 
; The Pierrot of the Minute. 


. Everyman. 


LITTLE BLUE BOOK SERIES 


Empedocles on BHtna. 
Arnold. 

The Maid of Orleans. 
Samuels. 

The Creditor. Strindberg. 
Four One-Act Plays. 
Strindberg. 
Haldeman-Julius. 


Dowson. 
The God of Vengeance. 
Asch. Translated by 
Ysaac Goldberg. 

A Morality 
Play. 


None Beneath the King. 


Zorrilla. Trans. by Isaac 
Goldberg. 

The Beggar’s Opera. Gay. 
The Pot-Boiler. Sinclair. 


:erson, Ralph Waldo 


Essays on Compensation and 
iriendship. 
Gems from Emerson. 


53. 4.94 425-426 Representative 


Men. 4 Vols. 
Essays on Power and 
Behavior. 


Essays on Experience and 
Politics. 

Essays on the Poet and 
Nature. 

Essays on. Character and 
Manners. ; 
Essays on Love, Heroism, 
and Prudence. 

Essays on Spiritual Laws 


and Circles. — 
Essays on History and 
Intellect. 


Essays on Nominalist and 
Realist, Gifts, and the 
Over-Soul. 


Bssays on Art and Self- 
Reliance. 

Hssays on Beauty and 
Worship. 

Wssays on Fate and 
Tlusions. 

Essays on Wealth and 
Culture. 

A Guide to the Philosophy 
of Emerson. Tichenor. 


Essays—-( Collections) 


(See ‘‘Emerson, Ralph Waldo.’’) 


43 


70 
176 
9385 
278 


448 


Truth, and Other Essays. 
Bacon. : 

Charles Lamb’s Essays. 

Four Essays. Ellis. 

Essays. Chesterton. , 
Friendship, and Other 
essays. Thoreau. 

Essays on Montaigne, Pascd 


and Voltaire. Powys. 
Vssays on Rousseau, Balzac 
aad Hugo. Powys. 
Mssays on De Maupassant, ~ 
Anatole France and William 
Blake. Powys. ran 
Essays on Remy de Gour- — 
mont and Byron. Powys. 
Essays on Emily Bronte and 
Henry James. Powys. 
Essays on Joseph Conrad 
and Oscar Wilde. Powys. 
“fiscelianeous Essays. 
Haldeman-Julius. 
J.iterary Essays. 
Haldeman-Julius. 
Honey and Gall. 
e s 

_ Fiction 
Carmen. Merimee. 
Great Stories of the Sea. 
Cooper, Loti and Marryat. 
Dreams. Schreiner. 
Dreum-cf John Ball. 
Morris. : 
XTilth Century Prose Tales. 
Morris. 3 
The House and the Brain. 
Lytton. 


A Christmas Carol. ~ 
Dickens. 


Powys. 


a 


3 Tales from the Decameron. 


Beccaecio. 

The Color of Life. 
Tlaldeman-Julius. 
Sherlock Holmes Tales. 
Doyle. 

The Dream Woman. 
Collins. 


5 Great Ghost Stories. 
& 'The 


Strength of the Strong. 
London. 

The Man Who Would ee: = 
RiGee IPH AE ( 


LITTLE BLUE BOOK SERIES 61 


331 The Finest Story in the 
332 'the Man Who Was, and 
Other Stories, Kipling. 
-833 Mulvaney Stories. Kipling. 

336 o bale of the Beast. 


iplin 
357 Bite of ‘the Dreadful Night.. 
Kipling 
161 The country of the Blind. 
We 


lls. 
182 Daisy Miller. James. 
307 A Tillyloss Scandal. Barrie. 
215 The Miraculous Revenge. 


Shaw. 
932 The Three Strangers. 
Hard 


ardy. 

277 The Man Without a © 
Country. Hale. 

985 Euphorian in Texas. Moore. 

855 Aucassin and Nicolete. 


Lang. 4 

' 863 Miggles and Other Stories. 
Harte. 

397 Irish Fairy Tales. 

420 ane Stories from the 
Spanish. 

454 The Unworthy Coopers, etc. 
Haldeman-Julius. i 

234 Caught and Other Stories. 
Haldeman-Julius. k 

489 Great Yiddish Short Stories. 
Edited by Goldberg. 

577 The Lifted Veil. Fliot. 

583-584-585-586-587-588 The 
Jungle, 6 Vols. Singlair. 

590-591-592 The Millennium. 
8 Vols. Sinclair. 

594 The Overman. Sinclair. 

595 The Happy Hypocrite. 
Beerbohm. 


Fine Arts 


476 A Handbook on the Gilbert 
and Sullivan Operas. 


Goldberg. 

287 Whistler: .The Man and 
His Work.” 

887 History of Painting. 
Sheehan, 


403 History of Music. Sheehan. 
466 A History of Sculpture. 


heehan 
468 A History of Architecture. 
Sheehan, 


413 The Need for Art in Life. 


Holborn. . 
507 Richard Wagner: An Intro- 
duction. Goldberg. 
(Note: 


In the operatic titles 
listed below, Mr. Theo. M. R. 
von Keler gives short biograph- 
ical sketches, the story of the 
opera and helpful criticism of 
the music, illustrated by ex- 
cerpts from the score.) 
410 Die Walkuere. Wagner. 
440 Cavalleria Rusticana. 
Mascagni. 
441 I Pagliacci. Leoncavallo. 
455 Riehard Strauss’s Salome. 
456 Carmen. Bizet. 
457 Lohengrin. Wagner. 
458 Tannhauser. Wagner. 
459 Das Rheingold. Wagner. 
494 Siegfried. Wagner. 
495 Rigoletto. Verdi. 


569 Gotterdammerung. Wagner, 


History 


50 Paine’s Common Sense. 

34 The Mystery of the Iron 
Mask. Von Keler. 

67 Church History. Tichenor. 

83 Marriage: Its. Past, Present 
and Future. Besani. 

125 War Speeches of Woodrow 
Wilson. Edited by Smith. 

126 History of Rome. Giles. 

149 Historic Crimes and Crim- 
inals. Finger. 

150 Lost. Civilizations. Finger. 

169 Voices From the Past. 
Tichenor. 


| 174 Trial of William Penn, 
| 185 History of Printing. 


Disraeli. 


| 201 Satan and the Saints. 


Tichenor. 


' 214 Speeches of Lincoln. 
_ 276 Speeches 


and Letters of 
George Washington. 

286 When the Puritans Were in 
Power. ‘Tichenor, 

469.The Egypt of Yesterday: 
A History of Exploring and 
Excavation. Moritzen. 

&W A History of Polar Explora- 
tion and Adventure. Van 
Yicklen. 


62 LITTLE BLUE BOOK SERIES 


The Ancient Regime 

(France Before the Revolu- 

tion). Gottschalk. 

515 The Fall of Louis XVI. 
Gottschalk. 

8 Great Pirates. Finger, 

5 Science of History, Froude. 

6 A History of Modern 


Mexico. Parker. 


French Literature 


(In English) 


15 The Atheist’s Mass, and. An 
Accursed House. Balzac. 


In the Time of Terror. and 
Other Stories. Balzac. 


Christ in Flanders, 
Other Stories. Balzac. 


344 Don Juan, and. A Passion 
in the Desert. Balzac. 


237 Poems in Prose. 

Baudelaire. 

Sarah Bernhardt’s Love Let- 

ters te Sardou, 

314 Short Stories. Daudet. 

6 Love, and Other Stories, 

Maupassant. 

The Tallow Ball (Boule de 

Suif). Maupassant, 

292 Mademoiselle Fifi, 
Other Stories. 

66 Crimes of the 


and 


and 
Maupassant, 
Borgias. 


Dumas. (Edited by H. M, 
Tichenor). 

300 Terrorism in France. 
Dumas. 

319 Comtesse de Saint-Geran. 
Dumas. 


570 The Legend of Saint Julian 
the Hospitaller. Flaubert. 

198 The Majesty of Justice. 
France. 

219 The Human Tragedy. 
France. 

178 One of Cleopatra’s Nights. 
Gautier 

230 The Fleece of Gold | 
Gautier. 

345 Clarimonde. Gauiton 


877 A Night in the Luxembourg. 
Gourmont. 


540 


541 


8h 


18 


20 
166 


231 


Stories ip Yell Black, 
White, Biue,” a? “and 
Red, Gourmont.. Trans. by 
Isaac Goldberg. ; 
Stories in Green, Rose 
Purple. Lilac and Orange 
Gourmont. Trans. by Gold 
erg. 

Philosophie Nights ae Paris 


Neder es Trans. by Gold : 
berg, tg 
Last Days of a ‘Condemned wee 
Man, Hugo. . Ave oe 
Oration on Voltaire. ‘eee. Ne i 
Battle of Waterloo, Hugo. 

The King Enjoys Himself 

(Le Roi s’Amuse). Hugo. 
Tartuffe. Moliere. — 


The Misanthrope, | Moliere. 
Les Precieuses “Ridicules. f 
Moliere. ; 
The Nobody Who Apes No- 
bility (Le Bourgeois Gentil- 
homme)... Moliere. rae 
Love: an Essay. Montaigne. 
Pelleas and Melisande, ide 
Maeterlinck. ~ ts 
Women, and Other Essays. ede 
Maeterlinck. Nara a 
Life of Jesus, Renan (Con- — 
densed by H. M. iain syle 
Chapters from the Soci al 
Contract, Rousseau. — 
Essays on Chesterfield ane é) 


Rabelais. Sainte-Beuve. 
The Marquise. Sand. 
Volney’s: Ruins of Tanpites: 


(Condensed by John Mason). 
Eighteen Little Essays. 
Voltaire, Spey ate ee 
Toleration. Voltaire, 
Pocket Theology. Voltaira | 
The Ignorant Philosophe ts 
Voltaire ; 
The ‘Attack on the Min. 
Zola. 


Humor 


Idle Thoughts of an i 
Fellow. Jerome, 

Let’s Laugh. Nasby. | 
English as She Ap, Spoke. 
Twain. , 
Bight Sketcher 


Humorous ~ 
Twain. i ig 


